Lounging At The Cinema: Previewing Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge

IT occurred to me since I’m a film student I should do some writing about film and movies. Makes sense. So I will be watching some flicks and writing about them. First up, I’ll be watching and covering some of Jean-Piere Melville’s crime movies. I’ll be working backwards, hitting Mr Melville’s 1970 miracle The Red Circle and then wallowing in the splendidness of 1967’s The Samurai.

Some will go flaccid on me because Mr Melville was a product of french cinema, so the viewer has to deal with subtitles. Since I’m not a cinema snob, I feel comfortable saying anyone who thinks this way is a snob; a brutal fool. They are missing out on world class movie making. That man or woman is simply ignorant about the impact of perhaps the greatest crime movie director in modern cinematic history.

Yes, Melville was that good.

If you like Hollywood’s beautifully gritty crime movies of the 1970s; hard, character-driven, sparse and bleak framing, you will love Mr Melville’s work. There is no jammed framing with everything but the kitchen sink thrown onscreen. No stupid explosions every fifteen minutes. Mr Melville framed everything serious and stark baby, like it should be. With Mr Melville, there is character and there is double-cross; there is humanity! good, bad, and ugly. For those unconvinced, I will be hitting popular popcorn movies so do not be stressed. I figure I’ll traverse through such quality pop fare as Alien, Aliens, Terminator I & II, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and much more.

So, as brother Sam Jackson heralds in Mr Spielberg’s underwhelmed ‘94 Jurassic Park (Yes, it wasn’t that good and I’m a huge Spielberg fan) ’Hold onto your butts people” because it is going to be a wild ride… We can hope. If you’re interested in finding out more about Mr Jean-Pierre Melville. Go ici: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0578483/